Archives for August 2009
I ran across this on the FAILBlog website the other day, and I couldn’t help but laugh at this poor Councilman’s misfortune. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!
One widely held belief is that every initiative that makes it to the ballot is a citizen-led effort, but that is not the case. More often than not the ballot measure you hear about in the news or the one you are voting on was probably referred by your state legislature. While legislatures in all 50 states can put measures on the ballot in one form or another, only 24 states allow citizens to do the same.
While searching through countless bills across the nation in an attempt to provide an open and accessible voting process, I continually stumble across legislation that begs the question, “What were they thinking?” Most recently Nevada Senate Bill 212, which passed through the Legislature this year and was signed into effect on June 4th. As it turns out, this bill makes a change that has been struck down in federal court twice!
The Citizens in Charge Foundation page on the history of ballot initiative & referendum in New Jersey begins:
It is ironic that New Jersey, the state where the national initiative and
referendum movement originated, never adopted provisions for I&R.
Certainly it was not for lack of enthusiasm among New Jersey’s I&R
supporters…
Here at Citizens in Charge Foundation we work on protecting and expanding the ballot initiative process at the state and local level. Former US Senator Mike Gravel has long been a proponent of a National Initiative for Democracy, and he explains his plan in this video courtesy of the Blockbuster Democracy Blog.
(LAKE RIDGE, VA) – Today, Citizens in Charge Foundation, a transpartisan national voter rights group focused on the ballot initiative and referendum process, presented Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund with the August 2009 John Lilburne Award. Mr. Fund is being recognized for standing up for the rights of citizens and defending the initiative process from attacks.